After the snow, spring rapidly reloaded this week, with Coltsfoot flowers emerging from the soil, fluffy buds on the willow trees, and the first singing Chiffchaffs at RSPB Conwy on Sunday.

But the signs had been there a few days before: increasing numbers of Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the estuary and an influx of Stonechats across the region, including 12 at the reserve on Thursday.

Stonechats are common on heathland and moorland in North Wales in the breeding season, but most spend their first winter in Iberia, while most adults just move down to the coast away from the worst of the snow.

Wheatears and Sand Martins were seen elsewhere in the country in recent days, so expect to see the first in North Wales this week.

Read More

What else is around at the moment?

Almost 80 species were recorded at RSPB Conwy on Sunday, as the Leica Welsh Red Kite team raised awareness and more donations in their appeal to tackle illegal killing of migrants in the Mediterranean, now totalling almost £7,000.

Glaucous Gull, Scaup, Water Pipit and Firecrest were among the highlights here.

A Slavonian Grebe is giving close views at Cemlyn Bay, nine Greenland White-fronted Geese continue their overwinter sojourn at Talacre , and another Glaucous Gull is at Llanddulas .

Read More

Atlas accolade

Congratulations to the team behind “The Breeding Birds of North Wales”, an atlas documenting the distribution of 169 species across the region in 2008-12, based on 300,000 sightings by volunteer surveyors.

Of 40 similar local atlases published in the last decade, North Wales was voted second by a panel of judges from the British Trust for Ornithology and the journal British Birds.